00:00 - Intro
01:28 - Transparency of Consequences
07:40 - Choice Overwhelm
13:13 - Game Complexity
20:05 - Game Length 
33:30 - Memory 
37:33 - Speed & Pacing
47:21 - Co-op & Asymmetry
52:40 - Content Warnings & Player Safety
58:25 - Outro 

Quick Points

🔍 Provide transparency for consequences, by default or optionally. In legacy games you could make a digital guide for how a big choice impacts on the game.
🗺️ Consider ways to reduce overall choices in the game, thus reducing overwhelm. For example, versions of play with limited or reduced actions.
🧠 Consult the Laws of UX for tips on best practices on usability and user experience. https://lawsofux.com/ 
📑 Give players ways to prioritise actions by providing a suggested direction, such as through goal cards or a unique character action.
⚖️ Provide extra help where rules are not symmetrical and where misunderstanding may occur more frequently, such as a specialised reference card.
🫨 Consider ways to allow players to recover when plans are disrupted, and assist them in being able to pivot more easily or still reach that goal.
🎓 Include how long learning the game will take, not just an average playtime.
🕐 Consider pacing and average turn length, and if players need to be engaged at all times. How do these affect the cognitive load of your game and can you offer options?
⏯️ Help players return to play. Provide help on components or through mechanics for players to ground themselves after getting distracted or taking a break.
⭐ Help and support with ‘finding focus’ such as splitting up game management actions to help players engage, or accepting unrelated side-tasks like drawing.
⏸️ Providing ‘pause points’ and ways to help people ‘save’ the game, such as providing save sheets or extra bags for ‘saved’ collections of components.
📃 Provide ways to reduce memory reliance in games, even on a per player basis. Sometimes it’s as simple as allowing players to take notes. 
⌛ Include ways to reduce or remove timed elements.
💢 Give suggested plays to help alleviate round pressure, when a player can feel the need to plan several turns ahead thus significantly increasing cognitive load.
📚 Have flexibility for when admin time happens to help players build the experience around their energy levels.
⏲️ Reduce set-up / tear-down time if you can, such as through components like player trays or through things like quick start guides.
💜 Provide safety mechanics or tools for games with sensitive topics.
📦 Put content information on your box to inform players ahead of purchase.

Abletop - Episode 4 - Cognitive Accessibility in Board Gaming

More games with disabled protagonists that don't shy away from reality, please.

00:00 - Intro
00:40 - How we are doing
02:50 - Rare Disease Day 2025
03:47 - Thumb Soldiers
09:20 - Able to Play
18:00 - Bokura
20:55 - Split Fiction
30:00 - Sea of Thieves
32:46 - Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii
36:18 - Mecha
38:34 - To a T
42:00 - Monster Hunter arachnophobia mode
46:40 - Sorry, We're Closed
49:20 - Where to find us

Ep 21: Cooperative Wheelchairs and T Posing - Ctrl, Alt, Access

Timestamps

00:00 - Intro
01:47 - Communication-Based Games
11:24 - Abstraction of Communication
18:09 - Visual Communication
26:58 - Improv Games
35:22 - Social Deduction & Hidden Roles
48:40 - Dyslexia & Literacy
54:05 - Alternative Communication
56:59 - Outro 

Quick Points

📝 Provide options to use different communication methods, like verbal or text-based.
😶 Consider supporting play without verbal communication, by default or as a variant.
📈 Give levels of difficulty in games where speech is not allowed, such as allowing some speech, one word, gestures.
📈 Give levels of difficulty in communication-abstraction games, such as giving more options to pick from or ways to focus the clue. 
🎨 Avoid a reliance on colour for visual communication games.
🎤 Social pressure to roleplay, be funny or be quick-witted can be a huge barrier. Consider ways to support or reduce social pressures if possible.
💜 For improv games, consider providing more specific hint cards or fall-back options for players who struggle with improv.
❌ Provide a no-judgement ‘out’ to end a round early if things are getting too much.
☝️ Consider if your game could use interruption mechanics to give less confident players a mechanical way to take the wheel.
🕵️ If possible, make hidden roles optional to your game to make it approachable to more people.
🎭 Deception is difficult for some players, consider how the mechanics of your game can help support deception or provide a way for individuals to opt out of deceptive roles.
🛣️ If the game keeps going after roles have been revealed, set clear expectations in the rules that it is likely or inevitable. For longer games, ensure revealed players still feel like they have an impact at the table.
🎛️ Make rules variants, like having roles all revealed or no talking between players, to alleviate or omit some of the social pressures.
📱Provide ways or tools to help anonymity (companion app, one player presents all options, etc) where it is important for player-submitted parts. 
🔤 Where spelling is important, allow spell-checking devices at the table.
⏳ Remove timed elements or provide extra time for players who struggle with writing and/or spelling.
🤟 Provide ASL / BSL guidance for communication in your game if possible.
💬 Overall, provide ways to reduce speech or support alternative communication methods.

Abletop - Episode 5 - Communication Accessibility

Timestamps

00:00 - Intro
01:22 - Making Board Games Accessible
04:18 - Building Up a Teach & TCG Tangent
14:26 - Rubber Banding
18:51 - Randomness
26:01 - Financial Accessibility
29:48 - Canvas Mobility Spotlight
31:18 - Asmodee Access+
35:23 - Game & Rule Adaptations
44:37 - Outro 

Quick Points

💜 No board game can be 100% accessible. Don’t let the fact you can’t make it accessible to everyone stop you from doing what you can to allow more people to play.
🚧 Games are made of intentional barriers, accessibility is about unintentional barriers that arise which cause a mismatch of experience for players with access needs. As you design, ask yourself where unintentional barriers are happening, this will help you to solve them by design as opposed to in retrospect.
🪜 Consider a staggered teach for your game, across one or multiple plays of the game, to help players get comfortable with rules before adding more.
📶 Games that start simple and build in complexity as play goes on can be a good way to holistically incorporate a teach into a game experience.
🐚 Include catch-up or rubber-banding mechanics in your game to help level the playing field for players who are behind, especially on games with a live score track.
🎲 Consider ways to mitigate randomness, not just in dice but in other places with randomness, like card draw.
♟️ Provide access to basic resources/cards as a backup to a random card/item, to give players more agency and a greater feeling of control over randomness.
🛍️ Give ways for players to reset shops / offerings to help give them more ways to search for the resources they need.
🎁 Try to do as much for accessibility as possible in standard versions of your game so players don’t need to invest in add-ons or alternative components.
📂 Provide free resources to allow players to adapt common barriers in your game to their needs, such as free print-at-home stickers.
♿ If possible you could create specialist versions of your game to accommodate accessibility barriers, but try to keep the cost comparable to the original version.
🃏 Create cut-outs in boards to help with picking up cards.
🔓 Allow and promote players bending rules to fit access needs.
🎛️ Provide variations of gameplay that address unintentional barriers in your rulebook, online or in FAQs.

Abletop - Episode 6 - Board Game Accessibility Bits Bobs

We've got thoughts on emotional subtitles and Xbox nunchucks this week.

00:00 - Intro
01:40 - Avowed update
04:20 - One Lonely Outpost, Wanderstop, and In Stars and Time
10:00 - Split Fiction
11:30 - R.E.P.O
14:00 - Assassins Creeds Shadows 
32:00 - Xbox Adaptive Joystick
43:00 - Able To Play
43:40 - Accessible Games Initiative
51:50 - Microsoft Accessible Packaging Guide 
52:55 - SteamOS (Steam Deck) to support ByoWave Proteus Controller
53:50 - Jennissary received the Bob Rice Recognition Award at the G.A.N.G. awards
55:45 - Where to find us

Ep 22: Accessibility Tags, Joysticks, and Emotional Shadows - Ctrl, Alt, Access

Not something I anticipated, but we have a lot of positive words to say about Nintendo this week.

00:00 - Intro
01:12 - Atomfall
07:00 - South of Midnight
23:05 - Abiotic Factor
30:30 - Switch 2 
31:05 - Switch 2 Accessibility Settings
37:05 - Switch 2 Price and Game Price 
49:40 - Switch 2 Mouse
52:35 - Drag x Drive
59:20 - Switch 2 Further Discussion

For reference, this episode of Ctrl, Alt, Access was recorded prior to the BDS Boycott announcement RE Xbox. I will have a video live tomorrow on this channel talking in more depth about my approach to coverage now that the boycott information is known. 

Ep 23: Nintendo and Accessibility? We're Surprised Too! - Ctrl, Alt, Access

Two days and 16 hours of intensive accessibility panels and talks, condensced into two hours of live and not so live discussion.

00:00 - DAY  1
02:00 - GA Conf info and "News update"
04:20 - "Behind the Curtain: Sustainable Accessibility in an Indie Development Environment"
08:14 - "Include, Learn, Iterate: User Research for Accessibility"
13:07 - "You’re Doing Well if You’re Annoying Someone: A celebration of Advocacy, Making an Impact and Finding Community"
18:11 - "Selling Progress: The Accessibility Champion Survival Guide (2025 Edition)"
26:20 - "Chroma, A Colorblind Simulation Tool"
28:08 - "Adding Support for the Native Assistive Technologies in iOS and Android, for Apps Built in Unity"
29:39 - "King: Enhancing Mobile Audio with Accessibility"
37:25 - "Extending Accessibility to Mobile in Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown"
43:50 - "Mind The Gap: The Agile and Accessible R&D behind AbleToPlay"

48:30 - DAY 2
49:16 - "Conducting Effective Accessibility Research"
54:50 - "Nobody Wants to Make Players Sick"
1:07:07 - "TLDH: Deafness & Gaming"
1:13:37 - "UX: Building Accessible Player Experiences"
1:17:37 - "Representation of Invisible Disability – Exploring the Lived Experience of Teenagers with ADHD to Inform Game Design"
1:25:02 - "How To Measure Text"
1:27:17 - "Writing for Everyone"
1:30:57 - "From Champions to a Dedicated Role: IOI’s Accessibility Journey (so far)"
1:34:54 - "Taking a Cricket Bat to Accessibility Barriers in Atomfall"
1:38:22 - "Input and it’s impact: How the XAC changed the industry"

Ep 24: A Lengthy GA Conf 2025 Recap Live Report - Ctrl, Alt, Access

We've been busy smashing crystal bananas and piloting starships this Disability Pride Month.

00:00 - Intro
01:25 - Donkey Kong Bananza
14:01 - Nice Day for Fishing
16:44 - Bridge Command 
23:44 - Idle Games: Chillquarium and Rusty's Retirement
26:22 - Grounded
30:27 - Patapon 1+2 Replay
33:20 - Many Cats Studio Impact day and Nothing Without Us livestream 
34:28 - Game A11Y Gathering
37:25 - EA SPORTS FC 26 adds High Contrast Mode
40:07 - 9000 employees lost their jobs at Microsoft
44:50 - Accessible Games Initiative tags are live
49:30 - Where to find us

Ep 28: Real Life Star Trek - Bridge Command Bananza - Ctrl, Alt, Access

We are riding high, and loving video games this week. Well, except for one set in The Shire.

00:00 - Intro
01:15 - Powerwash Simulator 2
07:13 - Bridge Command and Empty Epsilon
09:54 - Yakuza 0
11:35 - Co-op Kaiju Horror Cooking
13:40 - Nubby's Number Factory
16:05 - PEAK "no head bobbing" update
21:55 - Tales of the shire
32:44 - Grounded 2
44:00 - Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 update 1.4.0's accessibility update
46:36 - New PS5 system update beta previews DualSense wireless controller pairing across multiple devices
48:30 - News about the PS Fightstick
50:16 - Where to find usm and what we are working on

Ep 29: Powerwash Those Phobias Out of Your Cutscenes - Ctrl, Alt Access

It's hard to find games to play when you're ill, if playing games is something you associate with work.

Timestamps
00:00 - Intro
01:45 - Supermarket Simulator
02:40 - Tiny Bookshop
09:38 - Discounty
15:21 - Bridge Command Campaign
26:07 - Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines 2
33:01 - Silksong Release Date
35:44 - Gamescom
38:40 - Resident Evil 9 Third Person Toggle
39:32 - Gamescom Games for Democracy
42:18 - Tiny Bookshop Gamescom Award
42:47 - The Rogue Prince of Persia 1.0 Release
45:06 - Nothing Without Us Award
45:48 - Gaming Culture Event in Norway
48:38 - Outro

Ep 30: Illness, and Chilling with a Great Book or Three - Ctrl, Alt, Access

We're enjoying the new indie darling, buuuuut....

00:00 - Intro
02:12 - Hollow Knight: Silksong
19:30 - Whisper of the House
22:30 - Ghost of Yōtei
23:20 - Pokémon Sword and Shield Dynamax Adventures
29:45 - PEAK accessibility update
32:40 - Mario Galaxy assist mode
34:55 - Ramble about life and where to find us

Ep 31: Silksong, Hidden Rooms, and Being Disabled - Ctrl, Alt, Access

A video game accessibility podcast published twice monthly. 

Hosted by Arevya and LauraKBuzz. 

Email - CtrlAltAccessPodcast@Gmail.Com

Abletop - Episode 4 - Cognitive Accessibility in Board Gaming

Ctrl Alt Access

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